Monthly Archives: January 2013

Today…today my friends was a glorious day! I woke up and guess what the first thing I did was? Yep, you got it…I weighed myself. I am happy to announce that…

I HIT MY ONE MONTH GOAL BABY! 150 pounds! 🙂

I think the last time I weighed 150 was when I was 2 years old. Haha ok all kidding aside, I do not remember the last time I weighed 150. I feel that I went from 130 to 170 (my all time heaviest). All I know now is that I feel GREAT and can’t wait to see my progress continue. So that puts me down a total of 8 pounds in one month – YIPPEEE!!!!

Now onto the fun stuff: MEASUREMENTS! If you refer back to my first post, my original measurements were as follows:

In addition to seeing the scale go down, it is even more motivating to see the inches go down! I was shocked when I saw how significant some of these numbers were, especially around my waist! I see myself every day so I suppose it’s hard to actually realize when you are losing inches, but hey – the tape measure does not lie! It also leads me to my next point, which is what I need to be better at doing as I continue this journey. I need to try and not focus so much on the scale and focus more on how I look and feel. Everyone always says this, but we never take their advice or our own for that matter. But it is so true! Reflecting on the past month, I was (and still am) bummed when I didn’t lose any weight for a few days or a week. Or I may have been up a pound higher than I was the previous week. At the end of the day, one’s weight fluctuates so much that it’s really confusing, especially if you’re working out like crazy and building muscle. I will continue to watch the scale, but now that I have measurements in, I’m going to try and not be so obsessive about it. 🙂

After lunch today, I started to feel very weighed down and tired. Not sure why, but I had a bit more coffee/caffeine then I normally would. After work, I went to the gym for 45 minutes and did some treadmill running, but my legs started to cramp up really bad so I switched the stair master. I did that for 32 minutes and burned 422 in total during my workout.

I’m really tired this evening so I don’t feel like setting up my camera and taking pictures, but I PROMISE I will take them this weekend. 🙂 It will probably be Saturday morning when I wake up since I have swimming tomorrow night after work. And I’m meeting my coworkers at the gym before work tomorrow so with that said, here is my food count for the day and I am off to bed!

Today was a great day! I met my coworker Sarah at the gym by work that we go to at 6:00 a.m. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a GOOD workout in during lunch and I have acupuncture after work so morning was the only option. Let me tell ya – I felt great all day! Not only did I not have to sit in traffic (I sit in 1 – 1.5 hours of traffic each way, each day), but I got the work-out done and over with first thing. I may have to do this more often! I started on the treadmill but my legs started to cramp and I couldn’t run that fast so I ended up doing a walk/run for 22 minutes and burned 153 calories. I then went and did the stairmaster for 17 minutes and tricep workouts, which burned an additional 267 calories. All in all, I burned 420 calories in 1 hour and 7 minutes. Not too shabby!

I went to see stand up comedy at Timothy O’Tooles tonight. Great show! And while having a beer was tempting, I resisted and stuck to water. 🙂 Excited to weigh-in tomorrow so food consumption for today was….

Wow, I can’t believe today is the end of week four. I say this every week, but yeah – it doesn’t feel like four weeks have passed at alllllllll. Today my manager took us to Wildfire for lunch so it was hard to not give in and get something I normally would have gotten (pizza, pasta, reuben, etc.). I resisted bread as a starter…had a bit of the chopped salad as an app instead…and ended up getting the black bean burger and did not eat the bun. I even passed on the cheese!?! Who am I turning into? LOL. I did have 2 small slices of avocado on the side and a tomato slice. I also used the slightest bit of garlic aioli mayo (nothing of significance) to give it a little taste. Instead of fries, I got balsamic glazed veggies (mushrooms, onions, peppers, etc.) that were roasted on their open fire. Sooo yummy! I can’t find the calorie count for any of their meals so I’m going on a whim and “guessing” based upon other food items I found that were similar.

After work I went to the gym and ran for 35 minutes (340 calories burned) and swam for 1 hour (422 calories according to MyFitnessPal). That’s 762 calories burned today and I know I did not eat enough, but I didn’t have many groceries in the house today since I just got back from St. Louis. So here goes nothing…tomorrow will be a “weigh-in” day since Wednesday’s are my usual weigh-in days. Thursday will be end of month weigh-in/measurements/new pictures! 🙂

Today was awesome. Fast Eddies was a blast and I don’t think I did too bad, all things considered. I could have done a lot worse, let me tell you. 😉 The food was delicious..the beer was cold..and my baby sister turned 21! Here is a picture of us celebrating. 🙂

I didn’t get a work out in today, but the next three days will be strict eating and hardcore working out, since I weigh-in and share new measurements on Thursday – end of the month! Eeek! I’ll do my normal weigh-in on Wednesday and share the results, and also do one on Thursday. Can’t wait to see where I come out! I did some preliminary measuring and I will say…things are looking good. 🙂

My friend Cellie and I hit the road to St. Louis this morning for my sister’s 21st birthday. She turns 21 tomorrow, which makes me feel really old! I know I will have some drinks and bad food because we are going to Fast Eddie’s Bon Air. For those of you who don’t know what Fast Eddie’s is, it’s a huge bar in Alton, IL where they pump out over 2,000 cases of Anheuser Busch products a week! They have $1 burgers, $1 brats, $0.29 cod shrimp, $2.99 tenderloin skewers, etc. Basically, delicious eats for cheap and cold beers. It should be fun and I’m looking forward to it, but I WON’T be counting my calories tomorrow lol.

I went for a run today with my family dog Sadie. I burned 510 calories, even with her holding me up. 🙂 She’s so cute and I love taking her out, but she has to stop at every pole, tree, etc. to sniff and pee. Needless to say, this slows me down and gets me off pace!

Cellie and I went to a country “dance club” tonight called Electric Cowboy. It was pretty entertaining to say the least! I had 2 Bud Selects (198 calories) so I didn’t go over my calorie goal for the day. Consumption was as follows:

Wow, today was a day from hell. I woke up to what looked like light snow. No big deal, it’s Chicago. I hit the road at 6:30 a.m., as I had to be at a training for work by 8:15 a.m. Yeah – that definitely did not happen. The roads were HORRIBLE. I did not get to the meeting until 9:20 a.m. 2 hours and 45 minutes to drive 35 miles….on an empty stomach! Needless to say, my morning was not pretty and I was very cranky. Fortunately, when the training was over at 12:00 p.m., we were free to go for the day. My colleagues Sarah and Ewa and I went to Panera and had lunch before hitting the gym. As much as I wanted broccoli cheddar soup, a french baguette and a Sierra turkey sandwich to calm my stress, I went with the more healthy options, as you’ll see below.

When we got to the gym, I was to the point I didn’t even want to work out. After a rough morning, working out was actually the last thing I wanted to do. I’m glad the girls pushed me because after my workout, I felt great! I put on some Rammstein and ran my heart out. I even got up to a 7.0 on the treadmill for 3-4 minutes straight. That is HUGE for me, considering I normally run at a 5.8 average. I’m trying to get faster and feel it getting easier so I’m doing speed intervals and taking baby steps. 🙂 After running for 45 minutes, we went and lifted weights for another 45 minutes. Back, shoulders, biceps. I have a feeling I will be sore tomorrow. 🙂 All in all, I burned 620 calories at the gym.

In addition to the gym, I had swimming lessons tonight. Week 2 and they went great!!! Everyone in my class was complimenting how well I swim which I was very surprised! My teacher even used me as an example as I swam the 20 yards (unbeknownst to me). When I came up, he informed me that he was complimenting me and that I did a great job. Now let me just say..I have NEVER played a sport in my life, and the times I have tried..well..it hasn’t been pretty. I think I have found “my sport” per se. I can’t wait to practice and for next Friday night to come! I may be officially addicted. 🙂 Anyways, MyFitnessPal says I burned 316 calories leisurely swimming for 45 minutes (it’s really and hour – but we don’t swim back and forth for an hour straight).

So here is what I consumed today. I missed the gourmet breakfast that the hotel served, and I was famished by the time I got there so my choices were limited. It was either cheese/cherry danishes, chocolate croissants or small muffins. I opted for the muffin, which ended up having chocolate chips in it. Oh well. I’m not sure how many calories were in it, but I looked it up on MyFitnessPal and it said 213 so I’m going with that. They also only had 2% milk for my coffee, and I had 3 cups of coffee to try and keep me full/awake so I am guessing I had about a cup of 2% milk. Not the healthiest breakfast, but I needed fuel…FAST…after a 2:45 commute.